Pagan Values Blogging Month: Education

In keeping with my last Pagan value, something that I know I share with many other Pagans is a love of learning. Most Pagans I have met are well-read, enjoy debate and are critical thinkers. We question everything, even our own beliefs. Wikipedia isn't good enough for most of us. We want footnotes, indices & appendices. Pagans today keep up with current events, science, exploration, innovation and invention. We want to know the past and the present and try to divine the future. There is no blindly following the will of our Gods - we always want to know why we're being asked to do something. We don't want to be spoon-fed and if something is handed to us, we're usually more suspicious than grateful. I think this is why so many Pagans favor deities and spirits who teach hard lessons.

Alongside learning is open-mindedness. Most of us aren't content to stay in society's little boxes. We're curious about everyone who is different from us, places we've never been, cultures vastly different from our own. Most Pagans I know have honorary degrees in Comparative Religion. It's a constant striving and yearning to know and experience. True Pagans are expansive and inclusive. We don't want to insulate ourselves, and fear is always another opportunity to learn.

Of course, this sometimes works against the community as a whole. I've seen so much disdain, hatred and anger directed on those Pagans who choose to be on the New Age side of the scale... the dreaded 'fluffy bunny', the 'white-lighters', those who truly follow the Wiccan Rede and Rule of Three, those who believe that Wicca is a few hundred thousand years old, the ones who want to be white witches and only acknowledge that which is good and light in the world and their fellow humans. Just as bad as the 'fluffy bunnies' are the hardened, cynical Pagans who love to tell people uncomfortable truths in as mean a way as possible. I could not imagine going through life with blinders on, seeing only one side of a story, knowing only my immediate surroundings, but I am not so cynical and hardened that I cannot see the wonder in the world around me or share it with other people. Yes, I gnash my teeth and smack my head on my desk sometimes when my oldest sister gets on one of her 'Universal justice' kicks, and some things people say (especially online) make me wish I was an atheist so I wouldn't be associated with said comments, but I've become a bit more tolerant and accepting in my old age & no longer feel the burning need to pounce on anyone who makes a moronic statement about Paganism in public.

This is really an amazing place we live on - the Earth Herself, and it's an amazing time to live in. I think, right now, there is so much ease of access to information that for people to not want to learn is foolish. It's so easy. Of course, turning that knowledge into wisdom is a complicated alchemical process involving Will, time and slamming into brick walls often.

Some people tend to think that knowledge runs counterintuitive to faith, that knowing too much can rob you of your sense of wonder and awe. I have not found that to be the case. I've developed, over time, a belief in a variety of Intelligent Design. I don't believe that some God or Goddess created the earth, the stars, the waters, the land, that people sprouted up overnight from some clay kiln or popped up in a garden... I don't know if it was a Big Bang or a Gnab Gib that set the clockworks in motion, and I'm not too sure of how evolution really works, but when I look around at all the marvelous coincidences of the results of whatever it was, I know that there is something Greater behind it all, guiding it, giving little nudges of Divine inspiration. Why else would our brains have receptors that respond so well to chemicals found in plants? Or why certain flowers developed that can only be pollinated by certain insects? Or why this little blue-green ball in the middle of whirling space would have just the right combination of elements and the right distance from a burning source of light and heat to be inhabited with all manner of life? There has to be a purpose... Someone or Something wanted us here for a reason.

Science fascinates me. I wish I had better math skills so I could truly partake of the magnificence that is science and truly understand things like string theory and quantum physics. The smidgen of understanding I have makes me long for more, but even the tiny glimpses I catch of the overall significance of some of it blows my mind and leaves me reeling for days. The scientific arts are just one tool we have to understand our surroundings, and that understanding brings us closer to knowing that everything we do effects everything else around us. We are part of a great web of time, space and life, and we are so insignificant in the greater tapestry - but on this small corner of the warp and woof, we are all so very important. To deny ourselves that knowledge is to cut the threads that bind us to the loom and the Weaver or Weavers stitching it all together.